Dilema

[Jeroen Dekkers]

On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 01:32:28PM +0000, John Tapsell wrote:
>   Also, thinking about licenses...  it would halve my development time to 
> build on GPL'ed software.  

Yes, that's free software!

So you only need to generate half the money because you only need half
the development time. This makes it a lot easier to be
profitable. Maybe this is a good argument to tell. (Maybe one of the
best) :-)

> I was thinking in an ideal world I could improve 
> on them, then sell this to the companies, hoping they won't just 'steal' it 
> (in quotes) and sell it themselves...

If they start selling it, you stop selling it to them. Then you've got
a new version and they don't. Then they don't have anything to sell
anymore, if they make changes to it those changes need to be GPL'd
also if your software is under the GPL. I'm not sure you can make a
profitable business out of that. If they abuse the freedom you give
them, punish them by not selling new versions to them.

Of course you can make some kind of deal that they you get a
percentage of the money they make on selling software or whatever. I
don't really see this as a problem. Your company is the only one who
has people who are familiar with the program and its code. I think
companies are willing to pay for new versions and support.

There is also another advantage for the companies if the software is
free. If bad things happen and your company fail, they can go to
another company and ask them to develop new features for the program.

>   Can I have an agreement they won't distribute the code/binaries for say 1/2 
> a year?  or is this illegal/immoral?   Are there any moral and legal ways I 
> could something along these lines?

I think this is moral. I'm not sure its needed. About the legal thing
I'm not sure, I think it's possible if you just make a deal. They get
the GPL'd software, they pay an amount of money for
that. If they redistribute it further within an half year, they have
to pay more for that.

>   Oh, and on another topic - If I take something based on a BSD license, and 
> develop it - what happens to IPR?  Do I have the IPR over the binaries/code 
> it produces?

You don't have the full rights, you still have to keep the copyright
notice. You have the right to redistribute it under another license
however.

Jeroen Dekkers
-- 
Jabber supporter - http://www.jabber.org Jabber ID: jdekkers at jabber.org
Debian GNU supporter - http://www.debian.org http://www.gnu.org
IRC: jeroen at openprojects
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 232 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/attachments/20020319/34361f69/attachment.sig>